The History of Karakuri Mechanized Dolls

The history of mechanized dolls in Japan began in the initial years of the Edo period, and from the start of the Edo period on, dolls that made a variety of movements were produced and invented, culminating once in the initial years of the Meiji period.The culmination had partly to due with pressure from the development of the machine-based civilization.Globally, dolls that made simple movements had been around since the age of the pyramids in Egypt that served as items in rituals and the like, and also went around the Silk Road with Arabian entertainers. Then, around the 18th century in Europe, dolls that made abundant use of clockwork mechanisms to achieve a higher level of quality were said to have captured the hearts of the wealthy at the time, such as royal families, at evening balls and the like.Of particular notoriety were the dolls of Jaquet-Droz.

Although mechanized doll entertainment flourished upon entering the Edo period (1603-1868), the technology it used is thought to have entered Japan from the West in the Muromachi period (c. 1336-1573).Omi Takeda’s Takeda Karakuri Group, which started in Dotonbori, Osaka in the second year of the Kanbun era (1662), is famous in the mechanized doll entertainment industry.Moving dolls using strings is called “ayatsuri” (puppetry), while moving dolls automatically without strings is “karakuri” (mechanization).The “tea-carrying doll” described in detail in the “Compilation of the Mechanical Arts” written by Yorinao Hanzo Hosokawa in 1796 is representative of these karakuri mechanized dolls.

Flute Playing Mechanization

In an essay containing extremely interesting information published around 1730, 27 types of karakuri mechanized dolls were introduced, although they were still made to move by hand so to speak rather than by automated machines.

The “Tojin (Chinese) doll that plays a flute” (the mechanized doll on the left side of the picture) was not designed to move automatically, but there was actually a hidden backstage room behind the doll where a person would play a flute through pipes that were run through the ground.

Still, we can see that people of the time seemed to enjoy the show by looking at this picture.

Calligraphy Mechanization

The picture on the left is a “mechanization to make dolls write letters”, where a doll’s wrist is attached to the tip of a board that has the shape of the letter you want the doll to write carved out.

A string goes through a hole in the board, and the doll’s hand moves in the shape of the hole when the string is pulled by a spring, writing out the letter.